Plot-bunny: Stargate / The Sentinel
I am once more back to reading a bunch of The Sentinel AUs around the idea that of what if Sentinels and Guides were a known thing. And it occurred to me that pretty much all of the stories have Sentinels as the primary powerful individual and the Guides as their support, to help them achieve all they can achieve and all that. Power dynamics and social situations vary, story by story, but the focus remains on the Sentinels.
But what about the reverse: There are these Guides, who just think outside the box and trail blaze new paths for whole populations and are destined to achieve great things if they can just survive long enough and avoid assassination by the power structures who don't want any new paths cleared.
And Guides just get themselves into so much trouble and the Sentinels are the ones who find them and imprint on them and become their body guards and their war leaders.
And so of course Daniel Jackson is a Guide, even though he's depressed and doesn't think he'll be able to change society because he got laughed out of academia; and Jack O'Neill is a Sentinel who thought he'd found his purpose in the military and lost it with his family. But then they meet and go through the Stargate and now Daniel doesn't even care about the whole Guide thing because he's too busy actually accomplishing amazing things and meeting amazing people to care about some stupid destiny marker or whatever. And Jack is scrambling behind him to keep him protected and going, come on, I'm your Sentinel I need to keep you safe, please stop throwing yourself into danger!
And Sam and Teal'c kind of look at this dynamic and are like, wow, Jack, you are not going to accomplish protecting that guide on your own. So, I guess you now have a team to help you with that because he's a guide that's a guide.
Meanwhile, Rodney McKay is a Guide who thinks any Sentinel within his immediate vicinity should be making sure he's safe and any Sentinel outside of his immediate vicinity is out of sight and out of mind.
And John Sheppard, who has always had mixed feelings about his Sentinel status because his father wanted him attached to an ambassador or politician, and he liked his freedom too much to want to be tied to a single person, finds himself just enthralled with Rodney who is accomplishing what no one else can do and manages to be super demanding and super accommodating at the same time to all of John's issues.
But what about the reverse: There are these Guides, who just think outside the box and trail blaze new paths for whole populations and are destined to achieve great things if they can just survive long enough and avoid assassination by the power structures who don't want any new paths cleared.
And Guides just get themselves into so much trouble and the Sentinels are the ones who find them and imprint on them and become their body guards and their war leaders.
And so of course Daniel Jackson is a Guide, even though he's depressed and doesn't think he'll be able to change society because he got laughed out of academia; and Jack O'Neill is a Sentinel who thought he'd found his purpose in the military and lost it with his family. But then they meet and go through the Stargate and now Daniel doesn't even care about the whole Guide thing because he's too busy actually accomplishing amazing things and meeting amazing people to care about some stupid destiny marker or whatever. And Jack is scrambling behind him to keep him protected and going, come on, I'm your Sentinel I need to keep you safe, please stop throwing yourself into danger!
And Sam and Teal'c kind of look at this dynamic and are like, wow, Jack, you are not going to accomplish protecting that guide on your own. So, I guess you now have a team to help you with that because he's a guide that's a guide.
Meanwhile, Rodney McKay is a Guide who thinks any Sentinel within his immediate vicinity should be making sure he's safe and any Sentinel outside of his immediate vicinity is out of sight and out of mind.
And John Sheppard, who has always had mixed feelings about his Sentinel status because his father wanted him attached to an ambassador or politician, and he liked his freedom too much to want to be tied to a single person, finds himself just enthralled with Rodney who is accomplishing what no one else can do and manages to be super demanding and super accommodating at the same time to all of John's issues.